The association writes a letter to RJio, asks the new entrant to abstain from threatening it with legal action
The war of words between Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) and the new telecom player Reliance Jio seems unlikely to end anytime soon.
In the latest salvo, COAI has demanded an apology from Reliance Jio (RJio) for making false allegations against the association. "Your captioned notices are patently misconceived and based on assertions that are false to our knowledge. It (the statement against telecom regulator Trai's recent tariff order) was issued in good faith in furtherance of our duty as an industry association inter alia to call attention to regulatory decisions that are detrimental to the growth and development of the telecom sector."
COAI director general Rajan Mathews, in a letter dated February 28, asked RJio to withdraw its notice and issue a public apology. "You and RJIL (Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd) are also advised to abstain from threatening us with legal action without cause or basis," the letter addressed to Kapoor Singh Guliani, a senior RJio executive, said.
"Should you choose to initiate any false and fabricated legal action, we reserve the right to defend the same at your costs and consequences…We reserve our right to initiate legal action against you and RJIL for false and malicious imputations against COAI and its officers," Mathews said.
On February 20, COAI had lashed out at Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) saying its latest tariff order amendment strengthens the ambitions of one particular operator with deep pockets and monopolistic designs. Without naming the new telecom player Reliance Jio, COAI in a statement said, "Over the past 12-18 months, regulation after regulation put out by Trai has ended up in distorting the competitive landscape in favour of one operator, while putting all other operators at a serious disadvantage. An environment of regulation and policy that is not based on an equal footing will further aggravate the deep financial stress and kill future investments, innovation in an industry that has put India on the global map," Mathews had said.
Though RJio is a part of COAI, it has divergent views, the letter had said.
Reacting to this, RJio, in a strongly worded letter said it reserves its rights to initiate criminal and civil defamation proceedings, including for damages, against both COAI and incumbent dominant operators (IDOs). A notice was sent to COAI asking for a public apology as COAI's statement was defamatory in nature.
COAI, subsequently, said its differences were with the telecom regulator and not with any operator in particular.
The issue over all these war of words is the regulation issued by Trai last week which said there was no need to place restrictions on the number of promotional offers from telecom firms as long as they were transparent, non-predatory and non-discriminatory and there was no need to restrict the time period of promotional offers from the current 90 days.
Since the entry of RJio in the telecom sector, the severity of the competition has increased manifold, putting a stress on the financials of the industry.
RJio had shaken the whole telecom industry with initial free promotional tariffs and later, low tariffs. It also triggered a phase of consolidation in the industry where only a few players including Bharti Airtel, Vodafone-Idea combine (a merger between the two is underway), RJio and BSNL/MTNL.
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